software piracy & open software

[akif]

Don't know whether to put it here or somewhere else in the forums,
Anyway,

Belonging to a 3rd world country, i never heard about software piracy (as an isssue) till quite recently. Here, almost every software CD is available at rediculously low price.I haven't met anyone here who ever bought an original CD of any software.

Being at foriegn forums (like this one) i sometimes feel a bit guilty about this issue and our response towards it.
I want to ask if "Open Software" can be a practical solution for it?
If not, then what?
The per annum income of our people doesn;t allow to compete with the world in knowledge if piracy is eliminated completely right now.

Comments!!

Here is a link to an Open Software site (I haven't visited it thoroughly though)
http://sourceforge.net/

[mjc]

Yes, Open Source software is a very viable alternative to pirated software, in fact it is the best way.

Because you not get to shaft the corporations who think that they have to charge a small fortune in order to sell junk software, you get legal software that you can customize to your needs.

[pave_spectre]

And http://sourceforge.net/ is an excellent resource for various open-source software projects.